Christian Reads… (So You Don’t Have To) – SEO Edition – July 2012

Welcome to yet another edition of Christian Reads (So You Don’t Have To). I’ll be covering the best SEO news & articles that I’ve been reading the past three weeks and let me tell you there’s a lot to cover. Unlike my adolescent self, I’m all about sharing so if you know of any good articles that I’ve missed, feel free to let me know in the comments!

The New Mobile SEO Strategy

If mobile marketing isn’t on your radar, it should be. The same with SEO – optimizing your website for mobile is getting more and more important as more people use their mobile or tablet devices to use search engines. Google realizes this fact and put out a nice resource that Ben Goodsell covers in this article. First the resource: The Mobile Playbook. Ben hits on the main three points brought up in Google’s resource:

Serve the same HTML as the desktop version of the page and use CSS3 media queries to change the look of the site (ideal).

Serve HTML and CSS that is different from the desktop version of the page.

Redirect a user to a different URL utilizing mobile optimized content.

Which Page is Canonical?

I may be in the minority, but I feel like Dr. Pete is the best blogger on the SEOmoz team. His latest post – Which Page is Canonical – goes in depth as to figure out which pages on your monster website is canonical & goes into different scenarios (like display different search pages or product pages) and explains which is the canonical URL. This is really awesome if you’re unsure what the whole canonical thing is OR if you own a content-heavy website and want to make sure you’re not shooting yourself in the foot.

Bing Has Chipped Away 5% of Google’s Search Share Over Past Year

Matt McGee over at Search Engine Land shares with us the newest Hitwise search engine market share stats for May 2012. He notes:

According to Hitwise’s market share stats for May 2012, Google accounted for 65 percent of all U.S. searches — down from 68 percent a year ago. Meanwhile, Bing-powered searches in May accounted for 28.1 percent, which is up from 26.8 percent last year at this time.

That’s a five percent year-over-year decline for Google, and a five percent gain for Bing-powered search share.

The Guide to Developing a Content Strategy for “Boring” Industries

This is a fantastic YouMoz that was written by Stephanie Chang that goes into her methodology of how one might write exciting & worthwhile content for boring industries. She goes into how she collects as much initial data as possible, her target audience research methods and then an example of what kind of content might be exciting for those in the tire industry. It’s a nice look into an entire process.

My Own Personal Christian Reads…

So much is on my plate now. I’m reading baby books, “Daddy” books, still working through the first Game of Thrones book and more. Basically, I pick up a book based on my mood for the day

Readers Read… (So I Don’t Have To)

What have I missed? Did you read anything really awesome in late June that you’d like to share? Please let me know in the comments!